Men's World Cup 2016

The Men's World Cup 2016 took place in Saarbrucken, Germany from 1-3 October 2016.But who qualified for this prestigious table tennis event?

The 2016 Men's World Cup was played in Saarbrucken, Germany at the Saarlandhalle from 1-3 October 2016.

The Men's World Cup first started in 1980 as an invitational event for 16 players, and in 2009 it was extended to 19 players.

But from 2013, 20 players compete for the World Cup, with the World Champion automatically qualifying and at least 17 players qualifying through Continental Cups or equivalent types of tournaments. However, no more than two players per Association are allowed to take part.

The Women have their own World Cup competition which is being played in Philadelphia, USA from 7-9 October 2016, but I'll be focusing on the Men's competition here.

Playing format for 2016

The tournament consists of two stages, with all matches being the best of seven games, but first, all the players taking part are ranked and seeded according to the latest available World Ranking list.

Stage 1

In the first stage, the players seeded from 9 to 20 (12 players) are divided into 4 equal groups of 3 players, with all the members of a group playing each other (round-robin).

Players seeded 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th head each group A, B, C and D respectively.

Players seeded 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th are drawn randomly into the second position of each group.

The remaining players seeded 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th are drawn randomly into the third and last position in each group.

If there are two players from the same Association, they are drawn into separate groups.

The top two finishers of each group then join the top 8 seeded players in the second stage of the competition.